Softel announced it is working to streamline closed caption workflow throughout the editing process on Avid video editing workstations. The two companies are collaborating to develop a plug-in based on Softel's Swift vTX software, allowing users of Avid Media Composer, Symphony and NewsCutter systems to import and export subtitle/caption files and accurately preserve caption data throughout the editing process.

The plug-in will allow edits made to video content to be mirrored automatically in the closed caption data, ensuring transmission integrity. Previously, the asynchronous nature of the closed caption data could lead to missing or incorrect captions due to the process of video editing. To overcome this, audio and video are wrapped in MXF format, and the separate files are linked together in an AAF master clip file for convenience. Users will have access to flexible and precise handling of the data, with the ability to associate caption data with video or audio cuts.